The Horse Herbalist

Cranky Frankie – the Horse that Wouldn’t Go

Frankie was the kind of horse you come across fairly regularly.  Nappy, cranky, lackluster and unwilling to go forward.

When Karen contacted me she had owned Frankie, a 9 year old Quarterhorse gelding, for 2 years.  She bought him from a woman who had owned him for 3 years, who in turn had bought him from a stock station for her daughter to ride. The daughter quickly lost interest so Frankie had been turned out onto large scrubby, drought affected land with some cattle.

Karen was interested in Frankie as he was quite well bred and she wanted to campdraft him.

Karen told me that Frankie was in a poor state when she got him, so she set about cleaning him up; feeding, worming, teeth done, chiropractic check and then introduced some light work. He seemed pretty quiet, and all was going OK.

As time went on he seemed to be more and more resentful, he didn’t want to go forward, his ears were often pinned back. Karen took him to a trainer who had him for 4 weeks, and then advised her to sell him. Over time Karen had her vet check him out and do the usual diagnostics, nothing showed up but the vet gave him a course of ulcer treatment. Even though she noticed very little difference in Frankie, Karen wasn’t ready to give up on him.

It did seem to Karen that he was getting worse.

Frankie was napping, pig rooting, kicking, hard to girth up and rug, he was starting to scare her a little.  Karen sent him to another trainer who had a good name, particularly with stock horses. This trainer sent him home after a week and referred Karen to me for a hair assessment.  The trainer felt that clearly the horse had problems that no-one had been able to detect.

“Get him assessed, get him treated, then bring him back, “ he said.

Frankie’s story unfolded, becoming clear through the assessment process.

He’d had a good start up until 1-2 years of age then he had been affected by some sort of chemical spray which had left him with liver insufficiency. This was probably why he didn’t measure up to the hard work on the station.

During the hair assessment I found that his gut was underactive for approximately 2 years – this was when he was out on the scrubby pasture – then his gut became acidic in the 2 years prior to that. His gut wasn’t comfortable and periods of pain were increasing. Hence the girthiness, not wanting to be touched, not wanting to go forward, ears pinned, nippy.

Mentally/emotionally he had been switched off since he was 2yrs old, but he was doing the best he could. The ulcer meds would have helped on some level but they were just scratching the surface of Frankie’s imbalances.

Frankie’s nutritional ratings showed he was wheat intolerant – this is always significant. Wheat is an acidic grain, it can cause intestinal inflammation, damage to the gut membrane, behavioural issues and much more. Click here to read an indepth blog post on this topic.

NB: 99% of processed horse feeds contain some wheat or by product, this is often not listed on the ingredients label as unfortunately wheat intolerance in horses is still not a commonly accepted condition.

Karen had sought advice from the nutrionalist from one of the big feed companies what to feed Frankie when she first got him, and that advice would have been fine if his system hadn’t already been negatively affected by wheat.

What we did next was to start by removing all wheat and wheat by-products from Frankie’s feed.

The first half of his Herb/Flower Remedy extracts treatment which he tested out for indicated that his liver would be toning, doing a mild level of detoxing, reduce inflammation, soothe and heal the gut membrane. The Flower Remedies he chose let us know that he doubted himself, he felt gloomy much of the time, he felt ‘stuck’ as nothing was changing for him and he worried about himself.

I checked his progress in week 5 of the first 7 week treatment. He was already looking like a different horse, his coat was softer and starting to shine, his eye was brighter and he was calling to Karen when she approached with his mixture.

After the second half of his treatment he was moving like a different horse. The trainer was wrapped, and Karen finally had the horse she could work with, who wanted to work with her.

Cranky Frankie became Fancy Frankie!   A smashing story of the changes top quality, tailor made, herbal products can make in a horse.

This case demonstrates the value of accessing and then treating at core level, rather than putting a repetitive band-aid on the symptom – get to the root of the problem and heal the horse. 

If you have a niggling feeling that something is not quite right, or you haven’t gotten to the root cause of particular problem, a Hair Assessment may give you the answers you’re looking for.  Click here for information on our process.